Amazon Is Everywhere All The Time

Amazon is everywhere all the time and you can’t get away from them. Amazon wants even more market dominance to eventually become the biggest monopoly company in human history. It seems the only way for Amazon to do so is to work on complete domination of government contracting to become even bigger.

Amazon has gone from small entrepreneurial experiment to a company that is huge. CNBC reported on April 14, 2018, “what started in Jeff Bezos’ garage in 1994 has now become a global behemoth. Amazon accounts for about half of every dollar spent online in the U.S. and it sells more than 500 million products. But it is so much more than e-commerce. It’s a logistics company, it manufacturers hardware and robots, sells food, creates award-winning movies and is far and away the leading provider of cloud infrastructure technology.” Amazon owns Whole Foods and Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos is the owner of the Washington Post. The numbers of companies either owned by Amazon, Bezos or subject to an investment by Bezos shows that they have their hands in every possible way to make even more money.

Amazon is delivering products to millions of Americans and owns a corner of the internet where people can buy almost anything. Not content with Amazon Web Services dominance in computing, they are going after Google and Facebook, in what the Motley Fool calls Amazon’s next multi-billion dollar business, to take over digital advertising. They clearly want to be the biggest company ever created. Government contracting seems to be the last frontier for them to conquer.

Bigger is sometimes better, yet this big company has run out of customers and now is going to the federal government because they need to feed the billion-dollar beast that has created the first $100 billion dollar man – Jeff Bezos. Bloomberg reported in March that Amazon Web Services is the lead contender for a multi-billion dollar long-term contract to handle all the clout computing of the Department of Defense. Amazon has loaded up with people who have worked in the federal government and they have hired a literal army of lobbyists to secure this massive contract. They want it all.

Vanity Fair reported earlier this month that the Defense cloud contract proposal out for bid, now called the “JEDI,” has all the hallmarks of a swamp project. The report indicates that “though there has long been talk about the Defense Department joining the cloud, the current call for bids was put together only after Defense Secretary James Mattis hired a D.C. lobbyist who had previously consulted for Amazon. The lobbyist, Sally Donnelly, served as a top advisor to Mattis while the details of JEDI were being hammered out. During her tenure, Mattis flew to Seattle to tour Amazon’s headquarters and meet with Jeff Bezos. Then, as the cloud-computing contract was being finalized, Donnelly’s former lobbying firm, SBD Advisors, was bought by an investment fund with ties to Amazon’s cloud-computing unit.” Amazon has figured out that the revolving door of former consultants going back into government helps them to secure even bigger contracts.

Vanity Fair was not the only news outlet that reported on cronyism in the AWS contracting push. The Daily Caller reported earlier this month that “in 2012, Donnelly founded SBD Advisors, a self-described ‘stealth’ consulting firm that specialized in facilitating ‘engagements between the technology and defense sectors’ and sported a star-studded advisory team comprised of former high-ranking defense officials. One former Defense Intelligence Agency Principal Adviser, Anthony DeMartino, was integrated into Mattis’ inner circle as his deputy chief of staff and also served as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan.” Amazon has hired the best subcontractors loaded with former government officials to continue a push to open up the most lucrative contracting target of them all – the U.S. government.

The taxpayers ultimately will get hurt if cronyism and favoritism play a role in doling out billion-dollar government contracts. Amazon is not the only swampy corporation taking advantage of their market dominance to muscle in on the government contracting game, yet they seem to have taken it to an art form. Cronyism has no place in this process and one hopes that President Donald J. Trump takes notice of this contracting bonanza for Amazon and makes sure they only get what they deserve.

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S.C. Sherman

Senior Editor

Steve Sherman is an author, popular radio commentator, and former Iowa House candidate. His articles have appeared nationally in both print and online for Townhall, Human Events, Clash Daily, Washington Times, Washington Examiner, Red Alert Politics, Forbes, NRATV and others. All of his novels including his most recent tome, Lone Wolf Canyon, a modern day western that infuriates the left and all "Snowflakes," are available here.

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